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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
cleanly
adverb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
cut sth cleanly (=with no uneven edges)
▪ Branches should be cut cleanly from the tree.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A solid wood stem and mahogany floors and stiffeners complete the basic construction which has been particularly cleanly executed by West Custom.
▪ It has a shorter, more abrupt mould-board, which breaks the furrow but does not bury rubbish so cleanly.
▪ She would concentrate on the job in hand instead, and get it done as quickly and cleanly as possible.
▪ Susan Burling was a pretty girl, small and cleanly made.
▪ The hollow- ground blade, made from chrome-plated carbon steel, will cut cleanly through branches of up to three-inches in diameter.
▪ The knife glinted and the keg fell away cleanly.
▪ The two cleanly scrubbed grunts had made a final discovery: land mines last and last.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cleanly

Cleanly \Clean"ly\, a. [Compar. Cleanlier; superl. Cleanliest.] [From Clean.]

  1. Habitually clean; pure; innocent. ``Cleanly joys.''
    --Glanvill.

    Some plain but cleanly country maid.
    --Dryden.

    Displays her cleanly platter on the board.
    --Goldsmith.

  2. Cleansing; fitted to remove moisture; dirt, etc. [Obs.] ``With cleanly powder dry their hair.''
    --Prior.

  3. Adroit; skillful; dexterous; artful. [Obs.]

    Through his fine handling and his cleanly play.
    --Spenser.

Cleanly

Cleanly \Clean"ly\, adv.

  1. In a clean manner; neatly.

    He was very cleanly dressed.
    --Dickens.

  2. Innocently; without stain.
    --Shak.

  3. Adroitly; dexterously.
    --Middleton.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
cleanly

Old English clænlic "morally pure, innocent," from clæne (see clean (adj.)). Of persons, "habitually clean," from c.1500.

cleanly

Old English clænlice; see clean (adj.) + -ly (2).

Wiktionary
cleanly

Etymology 1 a. 1 being habitually clean, practising good hygiene 2 (context obsolete English) Cleansing; fitted to remove moisture; dirt, etc. 3 (context obsolete English) adroit; dexterous; artful alt. 1 being habitually clean, practising good hygiene 2 (context obsolete English) Cleansing; fitted to remove moisture; dirt, etc. 3 (context obsolete English) adroit; dexterous; artful Etymology 2

adv. 1 in a clean way 2 neatly 3 not causing a mess or unnecessary damage 4 innocently; without stain 5 adroitly; dexterously

WordNet
cleanly
  1. adj. habitually clean; "cleanly in their persons and habitations"

  2. adv. in an adroit manner; "he bounced it cleanly off the wall" [syn: flawlessly]

  3. without distortion; "she played the piano accompaniment cleanly"

  4. [also: cleanliest, cleanlier]

Usage examples of "cleanly".

Celestial Spirit but God, as knowing no admixture, gathered cleanly within itself.

One was the broken and burned-out remains of the Udaloy destroyer Zunyi, the second and third the forward and aft halves of the Luda destroyer Kaifing, sliced cleanly in half by the sail of the Seawolf.

The arsonist felt comfortable about being in the yard, knowing that the chances of interruption were tiny and, if he was disturbed, that his chances of running for it, and getting cleanly away, were excellent.

But I had to bite my lips so as not to burst out laughing when Frederick the Great got in a towering rage at a chamber utensil which stood beside one of the beds, and which did not appear to be in a very cleanly condition.

Normally an ippon is scored by throwing your opponent cleanly on his back.

Blue Dragon, claws extended, caught him by the throat, ripping the entire area out with that one blow far more cleanly than Kylin had done to Zzzeras.

But examining the cut end he found it severed as cleanly as if a knife had slashed across it, and then it was he knew and threw the lariat to the ground.

He was nattily dressed, his clothing brushed and his cheeks cleanly shaven above a gorgeous silvering moustache that tilted up at the corners like a smile.

But he did not really look at her, as he was engaged in helping Nicolo with a couple of his pages, which were not cleanly cut.

Now he lay on the floor with his head split as cleanly as a melon, and his wife Rosalia cowered in a corner of the room clutching her two-year-old daughter, Mary.

The queen ordered the two males with the largest quantity of appropriate nutriments -- not very much unfortunately, though understandably -- to apply tongues to the cleanly severed stump, closing blood vessels against the future flow and depositing the nanomachines that would soon guide regrowth.

As I said, the cuts are deep, the veins snipped cleanly, made by something very sharp.

With her pair of long-bladed surgical scissors, she snipped the red and black braid cleanly.

And at the same moment the forward swing of Lou, checked too late by the shout of Ronicky, snapped the rope taut, and Ronicky was lifted from the saddle as cleanly as in the days of old an expert spearsman hurled his foeman over the croup in full career.

Then in they trooped, the strutting serving-men, who split the firewood cleanly now as the women hustled in from the spring, the swineherd at their heels, driving three fat porkers, the best of all his herds.